In south Bethlehem, some entrepreneurs have put a new twist on an old building.

A Prohibition-era bank has been recast as the Social Still — Northampton County's first distillery since the booze business was made legal again 82 years ago.

Inside the stately structure, customers can sip some signature cocktails, like Oh My Darjeeling — pink black Owl's Brew tea, hibiscus syrup, lemon, lime and orange juice mixed with gin that was produced just feet away in stainless steel and copper kettles on display behind a glass wall. Others can dine in the old bank vault or have their gin and vodka drinks on the mezzanine overlooking the bar and still.

"We want to really nail down the idea that this is a distillery," said owner Adam Flatt. "This is a manufacturing facility, and we are just inviting you into a very sophisticated environment to watch manufacturing, to see how it's done, to see it firsthand. People come in here and say 'Is that stuff real?' The answer is 'yes.'"

Social Still, which opened in December at 532 E. Third St., is among a handful of craft distilleries popping up around the Lehigh Valley. Just a few blocks away, another craft spirit maker — Blackplate Distilling Co. — has been pitched for an old Steel building, the former tool depot on Columbia Street.

County Seat Spirits began operations last year and opened to the public in February in an Allentown incubator space. Eight Oaks has a license pending and a target date of this summer to open in a distillery in New Tripoli.

And at least two other outfits are looking to opening in the Lehigh Valley.

The Valley is not alone. The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board lists 23 active licenses for limited distilleries and 13 pending ones. There are three active licenses in Bucks County, one in Monroe and one in Carbon, according to the Liquor Control Board.

The craft distilleries began to gain traction after December 2011, when former Gov. Tom Corbett signed legislation making it cheaper and easier for them to start up. It lowered the license fee to $1,500 for distilleries making no more than 100,000 gallons a year. The law also allows for the distillery to have two satellite locations.

Outlook: New micro-distillery and eatery in South Bethlehem

Adam Flatt opens Social Still, a craft distillery and tasting room, in a former Prohibition-era bank in South Bethlehem.

Adam Flatt opens Social Still, a craft distillery and tasting room, in a former Prohibition-era bank in South Bethlehem.

And there's more room to grow. Before the "Noble Experiment," when the United States went dry from 1920 to 1933, the country boasted 2,000 distilleries. Today, despite the recent growth in the industry, just 500 outfits are making vodka, gin, whiskey and other hard liquors, said Drew Faulkner, vice president of the American Distilling Institute.

"It's impossible to underestimate the effect Prohibition had on [the liquor] market in this country," Faulkner said. "Right now, the market is still stunted by that act."

Americans are not as thirsty for liquor as much as they are for beer or wine, according to consumption statistics, but liquor remains a strong industry. The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States reported that supplier sales were up 4 percent last year to $23.1 billion, and total U.S. volume growth increased by 2.2 percent to 210 million cases.

The council credits the increases to innovations such as flavored whiskeys, a favorable tax and regulatory environment, and the increase in small distillers.

Craft spirits make up just 1 percent of the distilled spirits market, but it's on pace to explode to 8 percent by 2020, while the number of craft distillers will double to 1,000, Faulkner said.

Consider recent performance. In 2012, 800,000 cases of craft spirits were produced. That grew to 1.2 million the following year and 1.9 million last year, Faulkner said.

He described the growth of craft spirits as similar to that experienced several decades ago at the start of the craft brew industry, which gave rise to brands such as Stone Brewing and Dogfish Head.

"They're practically identical," he said, comparing the trajectory of the markets for craft brews and spirits.

Both industries have benefited from the growing farm-to-table movement of consumers who like to know where their food comes from and how it is made, he said.

It's a trend that Flatt, the manager of the Social Still who got his start on his mother's Franklin Hill Vineyards in the Slate Belt, had recognized when he was looking for a project. The microbrewery world, he said, is ready for their next big thing — and that's spirits.

He thought about opening one in Colorado, where he was inspired while visiting a craft distillery, but changed his mind when he learned about Pennsylvania's new craft distillery license and was introduced to the Bethlehem site. The site is in a historic building that falls in a tax incentive district. He wanted a project that had a "edgy, grittier" feel for his distillery with "sophisticated tasting rooms."

"The Prohibition-era building gives it a vibe like nowhere else," he said.

In Bethlehem, distilleries were attracted to the South Side — which evokes historical memories of a red-light district when bootleggers kept the booze flowing during the Roaring '20s and in the early 1930s, when the city conducted raids during a crackdown on lawlessness.

By contrast, Lehigh County's first distillery since Prohibition sits in a sprawling industrial building next to a cemetery in south Allentown, a couple miles away from the downtown building boom in the shadows of the new PPL Center. Alongside a microbrewery and meadery at the Bridgeworks Enterprise Center, County Seat Spirits makes rum and gin and is aging bourbon.

Its 1,000-square-foot space is dominated by industrial-size stills and barrels where owners John Rowe and his nephew, Anthony Brichta, make spirits. A small tasting room, which offers sips but no cocktails, sits off to the side.

"We're a grain-to-glass distillery," Brichta said. "We make everything from scratch, starting with the grain and milling on site."

Brichta, an attorney by day, started the business with Rowe, a retired air traffic controller. As Rowe reached mandatory retirement age, he figured he had time to take on a new adventure and teamed up with Brichta, who shared his entrepreneurial spirit.

Brichta and Rowe say they found a space small enough to fit a startup company but big enough to allow it to use equipment that will allow production to grow as the business does. It might not have the polish of better-heeled outfits, but it has the lure for people to tour and see exactly how spirits are made, Brichta said.

The look of the operations between the Valley's two operating distilleries vary greatly.

And, to local distillers, that's a good thing. The lure of craft spirits is individuality. Enough of it could build a buzz strong enough to make the Lehigh Valley a craft distillery destination.